sufi spiritual abuse recovery assistance.org is a venture of the interrogative imperative institute
the sufi spiritual abuse recovery assistance web site is dedicated to offering a variety of forms of recovery assistance to those individuals who have been exposed to the exploitive, spiritual abuse of fraudulent sufi guides (or shaykhs, pirs, masters) -- abuse which almost invariably has destructive and problematic ramifications for individuals who are its recipients. in addition, the sufi spiritual abuse recovery assistance web page seeks to offer resources, information, materials and services which may, god willing, provide people with ideas and understandings which might serve to fortify their spiritual immune systems against those so-called sufi teachers who seek to undermine, if not corrupt, seekers of mystical or spiritual realization.
the issues of spiritual abuse and recovery assistance in conjunction with the sufi mystical path is a little-researched, and even more infrequently discussed -- at least in any public sense -- set of topics. after doing numerous web searches as well as key word inquiries within various discussion lists, there is almost nothing to be found in relation to themes involving spiritual abuse and recovery assistance in relation to mystical charlatans associated with the sufi tradition.
the aforementioned dearth of material is not because there are no problems of spiritual abuse in conjunction with the mystical, esoteric dimension of islam -- also known as tasawwuf. in fact, there is a growing body of evidence which indicates such spiritual abuse may be of near epidemic proportions -- not just in different parts of the so-called muslim world, but in north america, as well.
approximately a thousand years ago, hazrat al-hujwiri (also known as hazrat dada ganj baksh) stated in his kashf al-mahjub -- and he, actually, was quoting someone from a still earlier time -- "once sufism was a reality without a name, and now it is a name without a reality." the problem has gotten worse since that time.
lest the reader suspect that this web site constitutes little more than a foray into sufi-bashing, you should know that i have been pursuing the sufi path for over 30 years. i have, by the grace of god, been exposed to individuals, teachings, and events which are among the very best that the esoteric dimension of islam has to offer.
nevertheless, i also know, first hand, about spiritual abuse in conjunction with the sufi path, and, consequently, i have an intimate knowledge of the evils which can come packaged in a facade of gentle, kind, compassionate, charismatic, sincere, committed knowledge that employes a variety of techniques involving manipulation, duplicity, exploitation, trance induction, altered states of consciousness, misdirection, re-framing, compliance, authoritarian control, triangulation, group dynamics, consensual validation, ambiguity, and so on, in order to induce people to enter into an obedient submission to the so-called shaykh -- a form of submission which does not, at all, serve the spiritual welfare of anyone.
one of the primary resources of this web site comes in the form of a number of books which are intended to provide recovery assistance to those who have been spiritually abused by an alleged sufi teacher. some of these works are directly on the issue of spiritual abuse which arises in conjunction with the sufi mystical path (e.g., spiritual abuse and the sufi tradition, while other books are directed toward providing either accurate information on the sufi path, or food for thought as well as comfort and enjoyment -- yet, in one way, or another, almost all of the cyber books which are available through the sufi spiritual abuse recovery assistance web site explore, directly or indirectly, the nature of abuse across many thematic frontiers -- from spirituality to education.
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